Homebuyers are pulling out of deals at the fastest pace in nearly a decade

According to real estate brokerage Redfin, more than 40,000 signed home purchase agreements were canceled in December, representing 16.3% of all homes under contract. That is an increase from 14.9% in December 2024.

It’s also the highest share since Redfin started tracking the metric in 2017.

“High housing costs and rising inventories have made homebuyers more selective,” said Chen Zhao, head of economic research at Redfin. “The number of home sellers is exceeding the number of buyers by a record margin, meaning the buyers in the market have options and may walk away if they think they can find a better or more affordable home.”

According to a separate Redfin report, there were about 47% more home sellers than buyers in the market in December — or 631,535 more. That’s the largest difference in the 2013 data, an increase of 7.1 percentage points from the previous month.

“I call 2025 the year of the seller because I’ve seen so many sellers achieve it,” says Ashley Rummage, a real estate agent from Raleigh, North Carolina, who took part in the most recent CNBC Housing Market Survey. “They reached out because they had a lot of fear about the economy. They had a lot of uncertainty about the current administration, mortgage rates and affordability. These are all challenges this year.”

Regionally, Atlanta had the highest contract termination rate in December, at 22.5%. That was followed by Jacksonville, Florida, at 20.6%; San Antonio with 20.6%; Cleveland at 20.2%; and Tampa, Florida at 19.4%. Cancellations were least common in the New York metropolitan area, San Francisco and San Jose, California.

According to the National Association of Realtors, pending sales in December are down as much as 9% from November, so the numbers were already low. Given the high number of cancellations, closed sales in January and February are likely to be quite weak.